Monday, 24 March 2008

Gay Bulgaria

David Giltinan, on Goodreads, has reviewed a book called Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities. It sounds fabulous. Here are some of the titles, with excerpts and/or comments, that David particularly enjoyed:

How to Draw a Straight Line, by Sir Alfred Bray Kempe'The Unexplored Fields are still vast.'

The Art of Faking Exhibition Poultry (1934), by George Ryley Scott.The author treads an indistinct line between condemning this widespread and despicable practice, and telling the reader exactly how to do it.

Correctly English in Hundred Days (Shanghai Correctly English Society, 1934)This book is prepared for the Chinese young man who wishes to served for the foreign firms. It divided nealy hundred and ninety pages. It contains full of ordinary speak and write language.....

Drummer Dick's Discharge, by Beatrix M. DeBurgh (1902)

Penetrating Wagner's Ring, by John DiGaetani (1978)

Handbook for the Limbless

Gay Bulgaria ('once noted in a survey as the least borrowed book in British libraries')

Was Oderic of Pordenone Ever in Tibet?

The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum, by Wallace Irwin (1901)'Am I a turnip? On the strict Q.T.,When do my Trilbys get so ossified?Why am I minus when it's up to meTo brace my Paris pansy for a glide?'

Truncheons: Their Romance and Reality, by Erland Fenn Clark (1935)with over 100 plates illustrating more than 500 truncheons.

Personal information

Born in England, I've been living in central Italy since 1980. My début novel - LITTLE MONSTERS - was published by Picador on 7 March 2008. The paperback came out on 6 February 2009. A collection of short fiction, entitled THE SCENT OF CINNAMON AND OTHER STORIES, is now available from Salt Publishing. The title story was selected as one of the O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. My second novel, ANY HUMAN FACE, was published by Picador on 7 May 2010 and came out in paperback in November 2011. In February 2014, my new novel, THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER (Exhibit A) will be published along side a memoir (WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART, The Friday Project).
(Photo credit: Patrizia Casamirra)